Thirst

A few years back I saw Oldboy. Up until that time in my life I had watched hundreds of foreign language films, loved some and endured others, but nothing to that point gave me the adrenaline rush that this film did.

After Oldboy I sought out the director's other films, loved Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, really liked JSA and thought Sympathy for Lady Vengeance was worthwhile also, if a notch below the rest.

For those keeping score at home, that is a 100% strike rate of 4 out of 4 films. If any director makes 4 strong films in a row I always look forward to whatever they come up with next with great anticipation.

So when I saw that director Chan Wook-Park had a new movie coming out, and that it was a vampire movie? I mean come on. It has to be good doesn't it? Yes and no, Thirst holds true to Wook-Park's deliberate skewing of conventions so that this is not your Twilight, Underworld or Lost Boys vampire film.

That's a good thing by the way.

But at 2 hrs 15+ minutes there is a little too much "filler" here to sit through in between the stronger scenes, which realistically don't have the impact of Wook-Park's better movies.

The movie opens with a Priest named Sang-Hyeon, who is so selfless and giving to humanity that he volunteers himself as a test subject for a horrible disease that basically blisters the skin until the sores and boils explode and move into the respiratory system, killing the infected in a horrible and painful manner.

Sang-Hyeon is expected to die, indeed 500 other infected people did... And he does, temporarily at least.

Upon his return he is now a symbol of purity, having been the only known survivor. He is treated much like a religious figure, something that he so uncomfortable with that he practically goes into hiding, staying with the family of a childhood friend.

Now the friend is basically an idiot, he is married but treats his wife like sh*t, as does his Mother who lives with them, but it seems at this point that Sang-Hyeon has nowhere else to go.

What no-one else knows though, as a result of the blood transfusion that kept him alive through his treatment Sang-Hyeon is now a vampire, but his religious beliefs don't allow him to kill to slake his thirst. He instead volunteers his priestly services at a local hospital and siphons the comatose and suicidal. After ingesting the blood Sang-Hyeon is temporarily "super", in a way that many other cinematic vampires are all the time, although without fresh blood he quickly reverts back to a deteriorating state until another fix is available.

Another side effect of gorging is that he is super-sensitive, and being around the young wife triggers thoughts that only dramatic bouts of self flagellation can quell, (look it up, it's not what you think).

Eventually though Sang-Hyeon allows himself to let the "little priest" go to work, and he and the wife quickly embark on a passionate and clandestine affair, with each episode temporarily returning Sang-Hyeon to full strength.

It is at this point that Sang-Hyeon decides to tell the wife of his dreadful secret, and after the understandable initial shock she "volunteers" to join Sang-Hyeon.

Now that Tae-Joo is a member of the SPF 100+ club, this brings a new obvious wrinkle to her life, as she still must endure the unwelcome existence that is being the dogsbody of the childish Kang-Woo and his controlling Mum.

And from this point the dynamic of the film changes dramatically, with Tae-Joo rapidly coming to terms with the requirements that being a vampire necessitates, and Sang-Hyeon having his own self written code of ethics turned upside down.

Chan Wook-Park doesn't "do" genre films. He seems to start with a core idea or plot element and builds around it with so many other facets that eventually what remains is a film that obeys certain conventions but twists the implementation to the point that the movie becomes almost impossible to categorise.

The two "sympathy" films were both revenge films at their core, as was Oldboy, only not in the Death Wish or cowboy revenge film way. Nothing is that simple in the Wook-Park universe.

Sang-Hyeon isn't a bad guy in the way that we would ordinarily consider a guy who sucks the blood from the living, nor is he an anti-hero. He is a priest who has become a vampire not through choice, who has learned to deal with his situation.

Even the most obvious choice as the "bad guy" in this case, Kang-Woo's Mum, is basically just doing what many other Mothers would (to a point).

Kang-Ho Song, who plays Sang-Hyeon, is in many Wook-Park films, and he is ideal here. He has a great round expressionless face that rarely shows any feeling or passion, and slits for eyes that also don't give anything away - regardless of circumstance - he is equally believable as both a priest and an unwilling vampire here.

While I liked Thirst, and I must admit I would have loved to have the opportunity to spruik a "Korean vampire movie" to my mates, I think that there is just a little too much missing here to give it a strong recommendation.

(Maybe I am a little disappointed because it was a great director that made this admittedly average film, I'm not sure yet.) Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. Not a big step backward for Chan Wook-Park, but just a little below his normally strong output. Would benefit from a few more edits.

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A vampire love story loosely based on Émile Zola's THERESE RAQUIN, Chan-wook Park's THIRST (its original Korean title literally means: bat) is a blood-soaked psychological thriller about a Catholic priest Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho), after experiencing a death-defying recovery owing to an undisclosed blood transfusion during his volunteer mission to find a vaccine for a deadly virus, he becomes the only survivor among all the infected, which attracts many devotees to worship him as a miracle from God. But the reality is that a craving for human blood has been commenced after the incident, the virus is still plaguing him, his skin is afflicted with blisters, only human blood can prohibit the symptoms and turn him into a nighttime creature endowed with all its well-established trappings like self- recovery, human-exceeding agility and strength.

So he becomes a vampire priest, battles his thirst for blood and sexual lust aroused by his metamorphosis, and also, it is a game-changer for his devout faith. He is reunited with his childhood friend Kang-woo (Shin), who is diagnosed with cancer, and his mother Lady Ra (Kim Hae-suk). But it is Tae-ju (Kim OK-bin), Kang-woo's wife, who is an orphan raised in the household, en-kindles Sang-hyun's repressed desire, deeply affected by Tae-ju's wretched story of being abused by both Kang-woo and Lady Ra, he ventures into a sexual relationship with her, eventually leads to a premeditated murder, afterwards, both plagued by guilt and haunted by the dead, their rapport internally disrupts when Sang-hyun finds out Tae-ju's ulterior motive, after a violent commotion, Tae-ju has been brought back to life as a vampire. The rest of the story can be viewed as a doomed romance driven by the incongruous nature between a man and a woman who may or may not love him.

The film harvests a Jury Prize in Cannes 2009, a massive domestic box-office champion too, it highly encapsulates Park Chan-wook's stylishness of drenching gore with nimble camera-movement and lurid colour scheme, paves the way for his next step into mainstream Hollywood with big star vehicle STOKER (2013). Notably, it also inquires into one's utmost challenge to his religious belief, Sang-hyun is as much as tormented by the ascetic canons of Catholicism as his sexual impulse and blood-thirst after the infection, until the final abandonment of his saintly embodiment before he meets the crucifixion.

Song Kang-ho, the most bankable film star in South Korea, diverts from his regular kind guy persona, embraces his fatalistic destruction with compassionate commitment, flares up with retro sheen under Chan-wook's slick versatility either in CGI-embroidered sequences or the claustrophobic settings where blood is running amok. Kim OK-bin, a newcomer then, triumphantly trumps all the veterans in her stunning depiction of Tae-ju's conflicted personalities and raw seduction, both actors also bravely engage in stark nude scenes which are still not common to be seen on the mainstream territory. Kim Hae-suk, as Lady Ra, achieves a different kind of thrill using only her eyeballs to dictate the most compelling set piece of suspense, and remains as the most uncertain variable up until the very end, indeed, all three performances are mind-blowing in this heretic genre piece, and Park Chan- wook is destined to continue his streak as an iconoclast condemning the morbid society by spiking bloodshed into violence and sex in a more global scope.

Not for the squeamish, but the number of twists, inventive uses of situations using vampire mythology, gorgeous visual extremes, together with interesting and quirky characters make this one of the most stunning horror films I've ever seen. It descends into utter madness along with characters, but never seems exploitative or horrific without purpose. There are copious amounts of bloodletting accompanied by some nasty sucking and squishing sounds, but also subtle moments where you laugh out loud. As he tends to do, Chan-wook Park keeps you off center with leaps in time and plot and situation that you have to fill in for yourself forcing your involvement in the story and characters.

And there's a lot of literal leaping. Keeping in the vein of vampire myth (pun intended), they have superhuman strength and can nearly leap tall buildings in a single bound (to coin a phrase). The first time our heroine is carried by the across the tops of buildings by the troubled vampire priest, it has all the magical romance of Lois Lane and Superman - but this romance becomes increasingly disturbing - but driven by a strange and conflicted 'love affair' not by mere horror.

The acting is superb, particularly OK-vin Kim, the gorgeous actress in the female lead role who, at 22, shows a range that is remarkable. The character borders on a kind of black widow film noir type. She careens from innocent to impish to vixen to demon with utter conviction. This is a really smooth and nervy performance.

If you love real art in horror, or are a fan of Oldboy - don't wait for the video, see it immediately.

No pun intended. I'm not going to spoil anything about the story, but it's safe to assume that you already know, what kind of character the main actor portrays. And of course being a priest while being "naughty" exaggerates all that. Plus this is the most erotic movie from Park Chan Wook yet.

If you have seen Wook's previous works/movies you know he is very visual (in a good way) and it shows again here. While it strays away from the vengeance theme of his prior movies on the surface, it still has quite some heat hidden underneath. And when that boils, quite a few bad things start to happen. But through all that dark, there also moments of light (fun) to be had too. A very stylistic and though provoking movie, that lives outside the mainstream and does a very good job ...

If you love Chan-wook Park, you know what to expect. His films are brutal, poetic, tragic, and artistic, with splashes of very grim humor. THIRST is clearly Park's style, and I loved every second of it, from the cinematography (every shot is gorgeous and creative) to the story, which blends Shakespearean tragedy, murderous love, Gothic horror, and layered character drama. The characters are complex and there is plenty of moral ambiguity to go around. Even the most sociopathic character evokes sympathy. The direction is restrained and the performances are nuanced - like SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE, there are too many subtleties to take in on the first viewing. Chan-wook Park is an intelligent, bold, consistently surprising filmmaker. It's unpredictable - scenes go from brutal and heart-wrenching to laugh-out-loud hilarious in an instant. This is closer to LADY VENGEANCE then SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE as far as being over-the-top and comical. But, like LADY VENGEANCE, it's incredibly rich, thought-provoking, and rewarding.

If you like beautifully told vampire stories (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) or are a fan of Chan-wook Park, seeing THIRST should be obvious. Easily one of the best films of 2009.